Moscow expects Iran and Azerbaijan to resolve the situation on the border with political and diplomatic methods, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"We are consistently in favor of reducing tensions on the border between Azerbaijan and Iran. We are convinced that all issues in the relations of these two close to each other states should be resolved exclusively by political and diplomatic methods, this way to overcome differences in the spirit of good neighborliness," Zakharova said at a briefing.
Tensions between Tehran and Baku have visibly increased in recent weeks. This has been affected not only by Azerbaijani border guards' obstruction of Iranian Georgians' passage across the border. Iranian authorities also suspect that Azerbaijan is closely cooperating with a regional Iranian opponent, Israel. Iran has accused Israel of seeking to approach Iranian borders through Azerbaijan in an attempt to take advantage of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as seeking to inflame the conflict between Baku and Tehran. Iran decided to hold large-scale military exercises near the borders with Azerbaijan, noting that it would not allow the presence of "third countries" and "foreign interventionists" in the Transcaucasus region.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from RIA Novosti